Well, I just came over to the Blackberry 8900 from the iphone. I LOVE THIS PHONE.. in just about every way over the iphone...

One feature I miss. When typing on the iphone... the iphone would auto-correct misspelled words on the fly... is there a program like this for the 8900?

I like to type really fast, and I am getting much faster at typing on the blackberry keyboard, it just seems like an auto correction type program/setting would be so convenient... I don't like the spell checker.. it prompts with a list of words, and really slows you down....

Anything like this available that doesn't slow down text input on the 8900?

You can set your own autotext entries. There are a bunch set by default. You can check what's currently there, and add to it if you need in Options > Autotext.

Well, what I am looking for is slightly different, but thanks for the suggestion. I don't know if you have played with an iphone before, but pretty much... as an example.. if I typed the word "hiking" but accidentally hit the letter "g" instead.. the iphone would gather the information on the fly, and the misspelled word "giking" would automatically, on the fly.. change to hiking.

And yes, sometimes it would guess wrong, but 95% of the time it was right. If this feature doesn't exist on the blackberry, I would say that is the ONLY feature I would miss.

It allowed you to type super fast, without concern of being overly precise with hitting the correct letter on the screen ( would work similar on blackberry because of the small keys ), and because each character has it's own key or screen space... it was very accurate... Kinda like with the pearl, but even more accurate than sure type because it wasn't guessing multiple letters per key......

Anyone know of anything like this?

If you have some of the same typos you do frequently, then AutoText will work well. Other than that, I am not aware of anything like what you want on the 8900.

Wanda

I've often wondered about this as well. The BlackBerry Pearl has suggestions as you type, but the general feeling is that the Curve keyboard is so good (especially the 8900 is a huge improvement over the 8300) that you can type accurately and quickly without needing the phone to make up for your mistakes. The iPhone, Storm, and Pearl (SureType) platforms all have much less than ideal text entry and so have to make up the difference in software. The Curve 8900 is still far from perfect, but also it's by far the best text entry device I've ever seen.

Not to say that the Curve wouldn't benefit from something like AutoText, but RIM's approach appears to have been to spend their finite development dollars on making a fantastic keyboard and a great OS rather than a mediocre keyboard and fantastic OS. I personally have to agree with their decision, I've just spent the weekend playing with my buddy's iPhone 3G and, beyond the cool factor, the iPhone just does not emphasize text entry and that was an explicit design decision (touch-based usability over hardcore text entry). For my needs right now, text entry is much more useful.

I agree with jcmtyler. Over the years I've gone from 8700->8300->iPhone->8900. Without the autotext correction on the iPhone I'd be dead in the water. With its flat glass surface and lack of tactile feel I'd make a lot of mistakes trying to get any real typing speed.

Now that I'm back to BB, I no longer have this problem.

My 8900 doesn't have Auto Text. But it does have spell check its not on the fly where it will correct the missed spelled word but it will under line it. It works like the spell check on the PC after you type almost any text emails,SMS,browser and browser search. After you type click options and you should find the spell check you can even set it up to do it automatically on emails. And unless you really miss spell something it gets it right on.

You are looking for something like SureType, which the Pearl has. I'd be curious if the 8900 has a similar feature. Being a Pearl user and hopefully going to the 8900 or similar device, this would be a great feature to have.